Press Releases

Team Badger, the coalition of animal welfare charities united against the badger cull has today expressed its shock and disappointment that the government intend to continue the badger culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire whilst starting

culling

in Dorset.

Team Badger is appalled that the government plan to continue this senseless slaughter. They are acting against the evidence of scientists, the advice of veterinarians and the will of the British public.

Brian May’s Save Me Trust condemns badger cull as “an expensive and failing disaster”. The Government’s failing badger cull couldn’t be more disastrous. Whilst Ministers and a few landowners continue to hang on to the policy, the science continues to fall apart around them. With no credible science to support their actions at the beginning of the cull and now “key” support abandoning the policy, the Government surely has to look at a credible, science led, cost-effective solution to the problem of bTB.

Scientific opinion remains firmly that culling badgers can have no meaningful impact on the control of TB in cattle.

This is being proved every day as the impact of better testing and movement controls is demonstrating five years of continuous reductions in the disease. These figures highlight greater reductions in key areas where culling is not taking place over areas where it is. The most impressive reductions are in Wales where badgers are vaccinated instead of culling.

We write to you with respect to licence applications for badger culls under the Government's policy on Bovine TB and badger control in England (2011). As far as we understand, the existing licenses for the pilot zones in Gloucestershire and Somerset remain in force,

Immediate issue 5th July 2015. Badger conservation group affirms support for 5 year test & vaccination project and rejects claims of a Northern Ireland ‘pilot badger cull’ The Northern Ireland Badger Group is the lead badger protection and conservation body in Northern Ireland. Since it was formed in 2006, its volunteers have worked to protect these iconic animals from a range of threats including persecution, sett disturbance and destruction, and human ignorance.